DesertFox
06-27-2007, 08:36 PM
Lisa Fabrizio
The American Spectator
John Wayne was born Marion Morrison 100 years ago last month in the dreaded Midwest, before his family moved to a California that had yet to see the "golden days" of left-wing infiltration. He played football at USC before a surfing injury caused him to lose his scholarship and he soon found work as a Hollywood stuntman before stardom found him.
He was incredibly handsome in youth and despite his large and rangy frame, had a lithesome quality to his bearing, even late in life. It is a cliche used in reference to many actors that women wanted him and men wanted to be like him, but this is in no way truer of anyone more than the Duke. Think of the greatest fistfight in film history -- Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man -- and one of the greatest love scenes from the same movie, between the Duke and Maureen O'Hara in the stormy Irish graveyard. ...
His critics say that there was no John Wayne, just Marion Michael Morrison reading from scripts written for him by his betters. If this is true, why then is there no John Wayne today? Anyone who surveys the current scene and is old enough to remember the days of the Duke surely knows the answer. The sublime Katharine Hepburn summed it up more eloquently than anyone:
John Wayne is the hero of the '30s and '40s and most of the '50s. Before the creeps came creeping in. Before -- in the '60s -- the hero slid right down into the valley of the weak and the misunderstood. Before the women began dropping any pretense to virginity into the gutter. With a disregard for truth which is indeed pathetic. And unisex was born. The hair grew long and the pride grew short. And we were off to the anti-hero. John Wayne survived all this.
More (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11645)
The American Spectator
John Wayne was born Marion Morrison 100 years ago last month in the dreaded Midwest, before his family moved to a California that had yet to see the "golden days" of left-wing infiltration. He played football at USC before a surfing injury caused him to lose his scholarship and he soon found work as a Hollywood stuntman before stardom found him.
He was incredibly handsome in youth and despite his large and rangy frame, had a lithesome quality to his bearing, even late in life. It is a cliche used in reference to many actors that women wanted him and men wanted to be like him, but this is in no way truer of anyone more than the Duke. Think of the greatest fistfight in film history -- Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man -- and one of the greatest love scenes from the same movie, between the Duke and Maureen O'Hara in the stormy Irish graveyard. ...
His critics say that there was no John Wayne, just Marion Michael Morrison reading from scripts written for him by his betters. If this is true, why then is there no John Wayne today? Anyone who surveys the current scene and is old enough to remember the days of the Duke surely knows the answer. The sublime Katharine Hepburn summed it up more eloquently than anyone:
John Wayne is the hero of the '30s and '40s and most of the '50s. Before the creeps came creeping in. Before -- in the '60s -- the hero slid right down into the valley of the weak and the misunderstood. Before the women began dropping any pretense to virginity into the gutter. With a disregard for truth which is indeed pathetic. And unisex was born. The hair grew long and the pride grew short. And we were off to the anti-hero. John Wayne survived all this.
More (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11645)